The basic premise of my digital garden is that I am always collecting. In my everyday life, I am reading books, checking social media, reading on the internet, and more. As a researcher, the things I collect go through a process, starting as merely interesting, moving to generally related, then connecting to other things, before forming to create something new.
My digital garden creates the structure of this process, both to contain the information but also to guide it along the process.
The idea of a garden creates a metaphor of growth, but we could also use the process of making a quilt as a metaphor, or the process of composting
This is the gardening guide for my process:
The things I collect go through a process, starting as merely interesting, moving to generally related, then connecting to other things, before forming to create something new.
Seeds
Seeds are the individual shiny things I collect throughout my day. They are the things I underline in a book, the ideas I highlights in newsletters and online articles, the notes I create from research articles, and more.
At the seed stage, I’ve merely collected them. They are other people’s words and ideas in their original format; in other words, raw data.
To collect seeds, I need to practice curiosity and attention. I need to be open to receiving—reading, mainly—and notice places where something resonates with me. I need to actively collect it (highlight, send to Notion, make a note, etc).
My goal is to seed my digital garden with content that is nutrient-rich and cultivates my curiosity.
Sprouts
I create sprouts when I plant the seeds I’ve collected into the garden by transforming the raw quotes, observations, and ideas into useable components that I can work with in my own process. In other words, I make them my own.
This is often a process of filter the material through my own lens and research questions, to ask why it resonated with me and what new questions, ideas, and connections it brings up for me. By exploring it from these angles and pulling it through my personal filters, I create an intermediate packet that I’ll later be able to use in my work.
Sprouts don’t have to be polished or even publishable. They are standalone topics through my own lens.
Shoots
I create shoots when I am able to connect multiple sprouts together to expand or strengthen into a bundle. This happens when the ideas have developed enough structure to support connections under a central organizing principle. The original sprout shoots off to the side and the stem elongates.
In this process, I grow my knowledge by forming new branches and connecting the dots into new clusters.
This is not necessarily an essay or even that structured. It may be a collection of sprouts that are threaded together as a bundle that might later develop into something more.
Blooms
When I am able to develop sprouts and shoots into new work, a bloom can emerge. A bloom can stand fully on it’s own; they are polished and substantial—they could be essays, videos, a zine, or maybe a book at some point.
My digital garden process is: Collect It. Make it mine. Connect it. Form something new.
My Garden in Action
Seed | While reading a book or article, listening to a podcast, or scanning Instagram, I come across an idea or quote that creates a spark in me. If it’s a quote, I capture it as a seed. If it’s an idea that gets me thinking, leaves me wanting to think about it more, or triggers a possible connection to some other idea in my head, I capture the idea and my thoughts as a seed. |
Sprout | At some later point, I take time to summarize the quote or idea of the seed into my own words and jot down any other sources I might be able to connect this to. This creates a useable unit that I can connect to other units. |
Shoot | Then some sprouts will grow as I add additional connections to the idea and collect examples of this. As the shoots grow, the idea expands as my own complex idea with depth and range. |
Bloom | Over time, I may expand individual complex ideas or connect multiple bundles of ideas to together into a piece of work that adds new value or information. |